The South Ulster area of Ireland has a significant local repertoire of instrumental music and song, most of which wasn't highlighted over the course of the post-1950s revival of Irish traditional music. This collection is a unique body of music presenting a repertoire which would have been familiar to the people of South Ulster and North Leinster at the turn of the 20th century. The project began with an article titled Oriel Songs and Dances, published in the County Louth Archaeological Journal in 1909. Contributed by Rev. Luke Donnellan, it contained a number of hand-scribed melodies collected within the Oriel area. This music was found to be part of a larger col- lection now residing in the National Folklore Archive at University College, Dublin. An analysis of the life and associations of Luke Donnellan places the two hundred and seventy-eight tunes in the sociological context of pre-in- dependence Ireland. The music has been transcribed in a contemporary playing format. These amendments to the scribe’s original inaccuracies and shortcuts are informed by the Editor’s insider knowledge of tradi- tional music style of the area, and of the aesthetics span of contemporary local traditional music performance. The manuscript is complemented by audio recordings of all the tunes; an auditory realisation which makes them available to be heard for the first time since Luke Donnellan’s origi- nal project began over a century ago. The book grew out of research carried out by the Editor, Gerry O’Connor, for a Master of Arts project he completed while tutoring at Dundalk Institute of Technology. Now clarified, re-set and corrected, the music is made available again, not only to music scholars in Ireland and its Dias- pora, but, more importantly perhaps, to performers of Irish music in the Oriel area and its neighbouring regions.